I could go on about how the Borough Hall subway complex in Brooklyn is one of the city’s prime architectural achievements, with two different eras of IRT construction, one from 1908 at the height of the Beaux Arts terra cotta era, and another from the Age of Mosaics just a few years later.
I could go on about how station art preserves history by depicting structures that are either no longer there or have been considerably altered so they no longer look precisely the same as they used to, like Brooklyn’s City Hall here, which became Borough Hall in 1898.
But I don’t have the time at the moment. Boro Hall is one of Brooklyn’s more eclectically colored mosaic art stations, with many hues from the spectrum represented. It reminds me of the many mini-mosaic sets I got at Woolworth’s in the 1960s that kept me occupied for hours. I wonder if hobby shops still carry those.
11/14/13
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And you could include the BMT Court Street station of the complex with the beautiful mosaic of the courthouse dome, torn down in the 1960s.
This station actually has three different architectural styles, if you incude the BMT Court Street Station which is connected to the IRT station (free transfer since 1948). It is a fascinating warren of passageways and platforms. The IRT 7th Ave. Station, opened in 1918, is on two different levels because southbound trains must pass under the Lexington IRT line in order to continue south. The Lexington IRT station was Brooklyn’s first subway station. Northbound 7th Ave. trains veer away from the Lex just before entering Boro Hall; you can see that from the south end of the Manhattan-bound Lex platform. A passageway connects both platforms.
The BMT station opened in 1920, two years after the IRT 7th Ave. Boro Hall Station. Both are Dual Contracts products but the BMT is different because it is one island platform in a tube-like tunnel.